"States should not be induced by coercion ... to surrender the management of their own affairs." -Calvin Coolidge

President Calvin Coolidge warned in a speech given MAY 15, 1926, at the College of William and Mary:

"But there is another ... recent development ... the greatly disproportionate influence of
organized minorities.

Artificial propaganda,
paid agitators,
selfish interests, all impinge upon members of legislative bodies to force them to represent special elements rather than the great body of their constituency.

When they are successful,
minority rule is established ...

... The result is an extravagance on the part of the Government which
is ruinous to the people and a multiplicity of regulations and restrictions for the conduct of all kinds of necessary business, which becomes little less than
oppressive ..."

Coolidge continued:

"
No plan of centralization has ever been adopted which did not result in bureaucracy,
tyranny, inflexibility, reaction, and decline.

Of all forms of government, those administered by bureaus are about the least satisfactory to an enlightened and progressive people. Being irresponsible they become
autocratic ...

Unless bureaucracy is constantly resisted it breaks down representative government and overwhelms democracy.

It ... sets up the pretense of having authority over everybody and being responsible to nobody ..."

Coolidge added:

"We must also recognize that the national administration is not and cannot be adjusted to the needs of local government ...

The States should not be induced by coercion or by favor to surrender the management of their own affairs.

The Federal Government ought to resist the tendency to be loaded up with duties which the States should perform.

It does not follow that because something ought to be done the National Government ought to do it ...

... I want to see the policy adopted by the States of discharging their public functions so faithfully that
instead of an extension on the part of the Federal Government there can be a contraction ...

The principles of government have the same need to be fortified, reinforced, and supported that characterize the principles of religion."

Coolidge's reference to "rule of force held in the hands of a few" was the view of the German political philosopher
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770-1831), who stated: 'The State is god walking on earth.'

After Napoleon had overrun Europe so easily,
Prussian King Frederick William III embraced Hegel's philosophy of strengthening the German state.

"The origin of a State involves imperious lordship on the one hand, instinctive submission on the other.

Obedience - Lordly power, and
the fear inspired by a ruler - in itself implies some degree of voluntary connection ... it is not the isolated will of individuals that prevails; individual pretensions are relinquished, and the general will is the essential bond of political union."

"Hegelian dialectics" is the method of concentrating power by first creating a crisis.

Described as a triangle: one corner is the THESIS, the opposite corner it the ANTITHESIS, and the top corner is the SYNTHESIS.

In other words,
create a problem that is real bad and
people will readily surrender their freedoms to settle for an answer
that is half as bad.

Each SYNTHESIS then becomes the new THESIS, and the process is repeated until all power is voluntarily relinquished by the people into the hands of a dictator.

Hegel wrote in
Philosophy of Law (Section 279):

"When it is contrasted with the sovereignty of the monarch, the phrase 'sovereignty of the people' turns out to be merely one of those confused notions which arise from the wild idea of the 'people'. Without its monarch ... the people are just a formless multitude."

Calvin Coolidge gave insight into America's success at maintaining order in his address at the 150th Anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, Philadelphia, July 5, 1926:

"The principles ... which went into the Declaration of Independence ... are found in ... the sermons ... of the early colonial clergy who were earnestly undertaking to instruct their congregations in the great mystery of how to live.

They preached equality because they believed in the fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man. They justified freedom by the text that we are all created in the divine image ...

... Placing every man on a plane where he acknowledged no superiors, where no one possessed any right to rule over him, he must inevitably choose his own rulers through a system of self-government ...

In order that they might have freedom to express these thoughts and opportunity to put them into action, WHOLE CONGREGATIONS WITH THEIR PASTORS MIGRATED TO THE COLONIES ..."

Coolidge concluded:

"The Declaration of Independence is a great spiritual document ...

Equality, liberty, popular sovereignty, the rights of man - these are ... ideals. They have their source and their roots in the religious convictions. They belong to the unseen world.

Unless the faith of the American in these religious convictions is to endure, the principles of our Declaration will perish.
We can not continue to enjoy the result if we neglect and abandon the cause."

President Calvin Coolidge stated on September 21, 1924, in an address to the Holy Name Society in Washington, D.C.:

"Equality is recognized ... from belief in the brotherhood of man through the fatherhood of God ...

It seems perfectly plain that the right to equality has for
its foundation reverence for God.

If we could imagine that swept away our American government could not long survive."